So I have an intro. I want it to open to a black screen with text. I've got all that going, but it briefly loads the character upon the black screen before the text appears. The character disappears when the text shows, but I don't want the character to show up at all in the intro, obviously.

Go to the System tab in the database and check "Transparent ON". This will make the character invisible. To make them appear (when the intro is done etc), Event > Page 2 > Change Transparency, and check "Transparency OFF".

I had the same issue, and tried the transparency idea, but the character would always appear for a second before disappearing. Maybe there's another way to use the transparency so that this doesn't happen, but I couldn't figure out a way to stop it.

So what I did instead was set my character graphics initially to "None", and then when I was ready for my character to appear just added the graphics in through an event.

If it's only for the intro, then better start the game without an actor available yet. In the Database, go to the System page and remove any character(s) from Initial Party. Once it's the time to make the character appear, by eventing, add the character in the party.

Another alternative is maybe set no graphic to the first character in the database and change its graphic in the time being.

Must say, this is the most helpful support forum I've been on for any product lmao

That's likely because it's not really a "support" forum in the traditional sense of that term. It's a "community" forum. Communities are always more helpful than support staff. Largely because a support staff often have not actually done any of the development of a product nor ever used it. But a community is built by and around and for the users. They know all the little quirks that even the developers might have overlooked.

BTW... I'll have to try to remember the trick about not having any initial party... that's bound to come in handy some day...